Have a cup of holiday cheer, Hollywood-style: ”Christmas was a train wreck,” says MCA Motion Picture Group chairman Tom Pollock. ”Too many movies cost too much” — and chased the same audiences. ”In November there were a lot of family films,” says Fox president Bill Mechanic. ”In December, (it was) women’s pictures. There wasn’t good spacing.” That means Hollywood is spending its January rediscovering the fundamentals:

Don’t clutter the field with too many similar films. Santa delivered a bundle of women’s films, but only Little Women was a hit. Columbia got the print late and lost a chance at some Golden Globe nods, but the movie still won some of the season’s best reviews. ”Little Women owes its existence to the women in power at the studio,” says Mobsters screenwriter Michael Mahern. ”The men didn’t get it.” Among other women’s films, only Jodie Foster’s Nell has found an audience; I.Q., Speechless, and Mixed Nuts got lost in the shuffle.

With family pictures, hip is better than square: Disney grabbed the lion’s share of the family audience with The Santa Clause, the rereleased Lion King, and the live-action Jungle Book, leaving the stodgy remake of Miracle on 34th Street and the animated Disney wannabes Swan Princess and The Pagemaster in the dust. Santa ”was a baby Home Alone,” says Fox senior executive VP Tom Sherak. ”It ate up everything around.”